tivals the one to implore the genial influences of heaven upon their fields, and the other to return thanks for the favourable seasons and the fruits of the earth. On these festivals, after the appointed sacrifices and other devotional exercises were despatched, the remainder of the time was spent in feasting, singing, dancing, and every species of diversion.*

It was an article in the Druidical creed, that it was unlawful to build temples to the deities; or to worship them within walls and under roofs. All their places of worship, therefore, were in the open air, and generally on eminences, whence they could have the best view of the heavenly bodies, to which much of their blind adoration was directed. But, for their schools of instruction, they made choice of the deepest recesses of groves and woods. These groves were planted for that purpose in the most eligible situations, and with those trees in which they most delighted. The chief of these was the strong and spreading oak, for which the Druids had a superstitious veneration. Pliny tells “The Druids have so high an esteem for the oak, that they do not perform the least religious service without being adorned with garlands of its leaves. These philosophers believe that every thing that grows upon that tree cometh from heaven; and that God hath chosen that tree above all others."+

us,

When the Romans first invaded this country they found neither idols, images, nor statues. It is true that they worshipped many fictitious deities, but they had no graven images—at least none in the shape of men or other animals-in their sacred groves. Whether this proceeded from a religious principle, or from their ignorance of the art of sculpture, may be doubted; for, though they had no artificial statues, they had certain symbols, or emblems, of their gods. "All the Celtic nations," says Maximus Tyrius, "worshipped Jupiter, whose emblem or representation among them was a lofty oak." Gildas, indeed, speaks of images which were remaining in his time (A. D. 560) both within and without the walls of the ruinous heathen temples, but they, as well as the temples themselves, had been erected by the Romans, or by the Britons after they were conquered.‡

* Toland's History of the Druids, p. 69, &c.

+ Plin. Nat. Hist. b. 16, ch. 44.

Gildæ Hist. cap. iii.

DECLINE OF THE SYSTEM OF DRUIDISM.

441

IV. It only remains for me now to speak of the decline of the Druids, and of their religion. About the period of the birth of Christ, the Druids were in the zenith of their power and glory, enjoying an almost absolute authority over the minds and persons of their own countrymen, and they were greatly admired and resorted to by strangers. But, as the Romans gained ground in the island, the power of the Druids gradually declined, until it was nearly destroyed. There seems to have been something in the system exceedingly repugnant to the genius and policy of that victorious people, which drew upon the Druids and their religion a considerable degree of Roman animosity; for which two causes have been assigned. One is, that though the Romans still sacrificed millions of the human race to their ambition, and had formerly sacrificed great numbers of them to their gods, they now began to entertain a just abhorrence of those cruel rites, and to persecute the Druids and others who practised them. The other and principal cause of the hatred of the Romans against the Druids was of a political nature. These priests

were not only the ministers of religion, but they were the judges, magistrates, legislators, and even sovereigns in their several countries. They were sensible that, if the Romans prevailed, it would be impossible for them to preserve their power; they consequently employed all their influence in animating their countrymen to make a vigorous resistance against those invaders, inciting them also to frequent revolts, after they had submitted. On the other hand, the Romans were no less sensible that they could not establish their own authority, and secure the obedience of Gaul and Britain, without destroying the authority and influence of the Druids in these countries. With this view they obliged their subjects in these provinces to build temples, erect statues, and offer sacrifices, after the Roman manner-and made several laws against the use of human victims. They deprived the Druids of all authority in civil matters, and showed them no mercy when they found them transgressing the laws, or concerned in any revolt. By these means, the authority of the Druids was brought so low in Gaul, in the reign of the emperor Claudius, about the year of our Lord 45, that he is said, by his historian, to have destroyed them in that country.* About the

* Suetonius, in vita Claudii, cap. 55.

same time they began to be persecuted in England, whence many of them retired into the isle of Anglesey, which was a kind But they did not remain long unFor Suetonius, who was governor

of little world of their own. disturbed in that retirement.

of Britain under the Roman emperor Nero, A. D. 61, finding that the isle of Anglesey was the great seat of disaffection to the Roman government, and that it afforded an asylum to all who were forming plots against it, determined to subdue it.* Having conducted his army into the island, and defeated the Britons who attempted to defend it, though they were animated by the presence, the prayers, and the exhortations of a multitude of Druids and Druidesses, he made a very cruel use of his victory; for, not contented with cutting down their sacred groves, demolishing their temples, and overturning their altars, he burnt many of the Druids in those fires which they had kindled for the express purpose of sacrificing the Roman prisoners, should the Britons gain the victory. So many of the Druids perished on this occasion, and in the unfortunate revolt of the Britons under Boadicea, which happened immediately afterwards, that they never again made any considerable figure in England. Such of them as did not think fit to submit to the Roman government,

The following extract from Mr. Hume's History of England may perhaps be acceptable to some readers, as it embodies the substance of this Lecture :

"No species of superstition was ever more terrible than that of the Druids. Besides the severe penalties which it was in the power of the ecclesiastics to inflict in this world, they inculcated the eternal transmigration of souls, and thereby extended their authority as far as the fears of their timorous votaries. They practised their rites in dark groves or other secret recesses; and, in order to throw a greater mystery over their religion, they communicated their doctrines only to the initiated, and strictly forbade the committing of them to writing, lest they should at any time be exposed to the examination of the profane vulgar. Human sacrifices were practised among them; the spoils of war were often devoted to their divinities; and they punished with the severest tortures whoever dared to secrete any part of the conse crated offering. These treasures they kept in woods and forests, secured by no other guard than the terrors of their religion; and this steady conquest over human avidity may be regarded as more signal than their prompting men to the most extraordinary and most violent efforts. No idolatrous worship ever attained such an ascendant over mankind-and the Romans, after their conquest, finding it impossible to reconcile the inhabitants to the laws and institutions of their masters, while it maintained its authority, were at last obliged to abolish it by penal statutes; a violence which had never, in any other instance, been practised by those tolerating conquerors." HISTORY, Vol. I. ch. i.

DESTRUCTION OF THE SYSTEM OF DRUIDISM.

443

and comply with the Roman rites, fled into Ireland and Scotland and the smaller British isles, where they maintained their authority and superstition for some time longer.

But, though the dominion of the Druids in our own country was destroyed at this time, many of their pernicious principles and superstitious practices continued much longer. In truth, so deeply rooted were these principles in the minds of the people of Gaul and Britain, that they not only baffled all the power of the Romans, but they continued to maintain a footing for some ages after the gospel began to be published in the country. And this serves to account for the numerous edicts of emperors, and canons of councils, in the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries, against the worship of the sun, moon, mountains, rivers, lakes, and trees. This wretched superstition continued even longer in Britain than in some other countries, having been revived first by the Saxons, and afterwards by the Danes. Of this we have a sufficient and melancholy proof in the fact that, so late as the eleventh century, in the reign of Canute, it was found necessary to make the following law against those barbarous heathenish superstitions. "We strictly charge and forbid all our subjects to worship the gods of the Gentiles-that is to say, the sun, moon, fires, rivers, fountains, hills, or trees, and woods of any kind."*

Such is a brief delineation of the system of Druidism—the religion of our forefathers; in the practice of the absurd, superstitious, and cruel rites of which, in all human probability, we, at this day, should ourselves have been engaged, had not the glorious gospel of Christ visited this benighted region, and turned our feet into the ways of peace. But, having traced it from the Christian era to its decline and final extinction, we shall proceed, in the next Lecture, to a more agreeable subject—the history of the introduction of Christianity into the British isles, and its progress till the arrival of the Saxons, in the year 449.

Leges Polit. Canuti Regis, cap. v. apud Leudenbrog in Glossar, p. 1473.

LECTURE XXIV.

Progress of the Gospel at the beginning—Inquiry respecting its Introduction into Britain-Testimonies of Theodoret, Eusebius, Gildas-Facilities of Introduction-Pomponia Grecina -Britain an Asylum from Nero's Fury-Improbability of Peter preaching the Gospel here-Examination of the Evidence respecting the Apostle Paul's doing so-Specimen of Monkish Legends on the Subject-Church of Glastonbury-NenniusJeffery of Monmouth-Persecution of British Christians-Giraldus Cambrensis-State of the British Churches during the first Three Centuries--Monks of Bangor-Pelagius and his Heresy-Means taken to suppress the latter. A. D. 33—448.

THE rapid progress which Christianity made in the world during the apostolic age, and the astonishing success of its first preachers, are facts that have often been adverted to in this Course of Lectures, and adduced as evidences of its divine origin. It does not, indeed, fall within the province of the historian to pursue this argument, and exhibit it in its full light, but merely to lay the foundation on which it is built, by giving an impartial account of the time and manner in which the several nations were brought to the knowledge and belief of the gospel ; and this is what I now propose to attempt with regard to our own country.

The ecclesiastical as well as civil antiquities of nations are generally involved in much obscurity. This is evidently the case with regard to the precise time when and the means by which the Gospel was first introduced into this island. Either the